Former Marlins GM Kim Ng remains a popular topic of conversation around baseball, following her surprise departure from the organization earlier this week. This morning, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald provided some insight into one of Ng’s worst errors of judgment during her tenure in Miami: signing Jean Segura to a two-year, $17MM deal last winter. According to Jackson, the executive wanted Justin Turner to play third base for the Marlins in 2023, but she was forced to change gears and pursue Segura after Turner signed with the Red Sox.
From 2020-22, Segura was an above-average hitter and a capable infield defender for the Phillies. However, the 33-year-old struggled tremendously in 2023, hitting .219 with a 52 wRC+ in 85 games for the Marlins. He also had trouble on the other side of the ball, committing 10 errors and compiling -9 Defensive Runs Saved and -4 Outs Above Average. With -1.3 FanGraphs WAR, the former All-Star was one of the least valuable players in the National League. Ultimately, the Marlins dealt Segura to the Guardians at the deadline, and Cleveland released him the same day. He has not played professional baseball since.
Turner, on the other hand, played a solid campaign for the Red Sox. His 114 wRC+ was his lowest since 2013, but he set a new career-high in plate appearances and RBI. In 146 games, he smacked 23 home runs and put the ball in play at an elite rate, finishing with the seventh-highest contact rate in the American League. That said, it’s worth mentioning that he took most of his reps at DH and first base. The 38-year-old played just 58 games in the field and only seven at the hot corner. He made three errors in 57 innings at third base, so it’s fair to wonder if he could have handled the position on a full-time basis for Miami.
It isn’t news that the Marlins were interested in Turner last winter, but Jackson’s report clarifies why they wound up with Segura instead. This new information paints Ng’s decision to sign Segura in a more positive light – he wasn’t her first choice, after all – although if she so strongly preferred Turner, it’s hard to imagine she couldn’t have beat Boston’s offer. Turner signed for two years and $21.7MM guaranteed, only $2.35MM more per year than Segura would command.
More to the point, while signing Turner might have gotten the Marlins more bang for their buck, Ng would eventually find a way to right her wrongs. She flipped Segura to the Guardians for Josh Bell, who played an instrumental role in Miami’s run to the playoffs. Moreover, she traded for Jake Burger of the White Sox, who now looks like the Marlins’ third baseman of the future. All front office executives sign bad contracts from time to time, and to her credit, Ng did an excellent job turning things around. Indeed, if the Marlins had signed Turner instead of Segura, they might not have traded for Bell or Burger, and their improbable postseason run might never have happened.
That’s too bad. I preferred Carlos Correa or Corey Seager but wound up with Javier Baez.
Yeah. I preferred for my job to pay me millions, but I ended up with less. If only we could all get what we wanted
Damn… life must suck for you as much as it does for me?
At least Jake Burger is American AF? Guess turner felt his body couldn’t do full time, I don’t blame him… that’s how you end up with Rosanne instead of Taylor Swift? Your body just isn’t good enough, nor your mind, or spirit and last but not least ur wallet? But hey for everything else theres masterclass and Mastercard?
I wanted the Tigers to NOT sign any of the SSs and stick with Zack Short. I didn’t think Javy Baez was an upgrade to Zack Short and still don’t..
You do realize that Zack Short had a dWAR of -3.5 in 2021? Not only was he horrible at the plate, he was abysmal in the field. I am not a fan of the Baez signing and it has look horrendous so far, but at least he as somehow still turned into a +WAR player because of his defense.
I’m not OK with Zack Short long term. I’m OK with Zack Short until the Tigers find a more permanent solution, preferably from within.
More stupidity from the Red Sox as John Henry flails around for revelence. Sad.
Relevance? Despite the last place AL East finishes since 2004, I do believe that the Red Sox have hoisted four World Series trophies since 2004 – that’s pretty relevant to me and millions of others. And correct me if I am wrong, (sarc) but I do believe John Henry was the owner for all of them. I will definitely take four World Championships during that run despite the circumstances surrounding the Sox’ play lately.
Dude go ahead live in the past. They also have more last place finishes in 12 years. My post is about right NOW — Henry et al and about how their constant upheaval has apparently caught up to them.
Big surprise everyone valued Turner over Segura. Lack of funds to sign JT I’m sure. Typical. Then they don’t have to trade for Burger for one of their top pitching prospects. And they eat the Segura contract anyway. Stupid. Keep on blaming Ng.
Lack of funds to sign JT I’m sure.
==================================
As per the article:
“Turner signed for two years and $21.7MM guaranteed, only $2.35MM more per year than Segura would command.”
I mean it’s the Marlins. Would it surprise anyone if 2.35MM was a deal breaker for ownership? And who knows if Turner would have went to Miami for the same money. Maybe he wanted more from them than he took from Boston.
$2.35M? No. But it is entirely possible that JT preferred the RS.
I think playing for the Marlins was probably more of a deal breaker for Turner.
Keep telling yourself that. He might have preferred the better weather and the weaker division to compete in, but at the end of his career felt he needed to max his dollars. Much more likely.
They asked him to please come to Boston in the springtime.
stymee, I agree, she was under money constraints. Good luck to her.
Weaker division eh? Last time I checked, the entirety of the AL East were home on their @sses yet again.
it’s not better weather
. it’s hot and humid
and you’re stuck in the middle 400 square foot area with no shade during the hottest months
You are spot on – JT wanted to come to Boston. Also, at that time, K. Hernandez lobbied for him to do so.
During the regular season the AL East is a beast of a division – but separating regular and post season is an entirely different situation. You must be a Dodgers fan, because the last time I checked they were sitting at home on their @sses yet again.
pretty much any neutral fan will tell you the NL East is the most loaded division right now
It was a lack of funds. As you quoted from the article. Sherman saved 2 million and it came back to bite him. Shows Ng has been handcuffed.
Marlins offered more than Red Sox did. JT himself said that, he just didn’t want to sign with Miami. Article is misleading
They keep splitting hairs on Ng’s decisions when this was the best Marlins team since 2010. Seems like the front office did a good job.
Everyone is splitting hairs on her decisions because there is a loud contingent of the media who are treating this situation as some travesty. Generously, she had a “mediocre” tenure and it’s not surprising that ownership is moving on. No disaster trades or albatross free agents, but the bad FAs outweighed the decent trades. Ng inherited a team with great young talent and left with a bottom tier farm. This is while making the playoffs with an historically poor run differential.
The marlins wanted her back and exercised the part of their mutual option. She didn’t exercise hers looking for a better opportunity what are you talking about ownership moved on?
The Marlins decided they were going to hire a POBO that would be above her. Not exactly a ringing vote of confidence. Any decision she made could be countermanded. I think THAT’S why she left.
Yes, I’m endorsing the pro-Ng contingent’s view that this was a nice way of letting her go.
This is while making the playoffs with an historically poor run differential.
========================
I’m mostly an agnostic on Ng, but some people are over-estimating making the playoffs with a Py W/L of 75-87.
It also seems they weren’t willing to go beyond 1 year.
Ng was in the position for 3 years. Any drafting likely hasn’t reached the majors yet. She really didn’t trade from the farm, so if its not produced during her tenure, that’s on her predecessor. As to her trades and FA signings, like they say about players, too small a sample size to really tell, especially being restrained by the payroll she was given. Its too soon to give up on her being able to handle the job. I’m betting she has a better future than Chris Getz.
It’s hard to judge a GM or a draft until about 6 or 7 years have passed, and even then you can credit the scouting department, player development, or the player himself. Overall, we don’t have a ton of information as outsiders.
Two things can be true at the same time: She showed she can handle a the job of GM, and it’s perfectly reasonable for the owner to have not liked the state of the team and wanted a change in leadership.
And without the totally unexpected collapse of a team with a 350 million dollar payroll in their division, they wouldn’t have made it anyway.
Ownership isn’t moving on. She is moving on. She wasn’t fired. Ownership exercised their side of the mutual contract option. She declined
Can’t blame her. Not even about the feelings being denied the POBO opening may have incurred. She had to be thinking that a year from now that POBO would want their own person in her seat. If she’s out either way, right now she can go on a high note coming off a playoff appearance. Next year? If the advanced metrics on the team are correct, and they regress to sub .500, who do you think they pin that on? Then she’s out of a job coming off a poor season. What are the odds they do better next year? And, even if they did, how much better do they have to do for the POBO to extend her and not replace her with his own people? Writing was on the wall, she had to walk it was in her best interests.
Maybe lead a team to more than one playoff appearance? Win an actual World Series as a head GM? She 100% does not deserve to be POBO yet.
How many POBOs have won a World Series or only made one playoff appearance, Kruk’s? Go look. There are plenty.
Was it Ng or was it her predecessor building the foundation prior to her taking over?
Mixed bag. Arraez, Scott and Luzardo are big positives. Drafting and FAs have been weak, with the disclaimer that getting FAs to sign with Miami could be more difficult than other places.
1. The difference in money between Segura and JT was only around $2 million
2. If you really believe Jake Eder is a “top pitching prospect,” then would you mind telling me what his season stats were for this year?
3. Cleveland ended up eating the rest of Segura’s contract
Pound sand some more and keep believing Ng was some sort of miracle worker who got screwed over
“Almost did something” are the silliest stories. It’s like pissing on my shoes and calling it rain.
There is going to be a lot of Kim Ng related PR in the coming weeks.
Exactly, thats like Oakland As saying they were in on Judge cause wouldn’t it be nice ? Almost happened … was gonna call his agent. Lol
Losing out on Turner didn’t force her to go with Segura.
But hey, if you’re trying to go into business putting positive spins on questionable baseball decisions, John Mozeliak is probably trying to assemble a team. He already has Derrick Goold in place as the lead hype man, but he needs all the help he can get.
Questionable roster decisions and you can add dumb spats to the list of what he and his yes man, Marmol, are into these days. The whole Contreras catching not catching, and O’Neill not hustling enough sagas are part of the entertainment from the Cardinals’s manager these days.
I think you can add Ryan Helsley and Genesis Cabrera to that list. There are obviously others that don’t play out as publicly. The deafening silence between the team and Jordan Montgomery comes to mind. Look what getting away from the dysfunction has done for him
Been steady drip of former Cardinal farm system players popping up over league, drafted smart, development was iffy, prematurely abandoning assets, n making errors in choices which players 2discard. Believe mozielak has lost his mojo. Gm passes u by if u don’t grow n adapt. Become ystrdys paper.
He never had any mojo. He stood tall on the shoulders of giants.
Dan;
Yadi made a lot of peoples reputations – pitchers, managers, coaches, FO people.
Yet kids come on here, quote his stats, and write that in no way should he be considered for the HOF.
Dewiit needs to fire both Mo and Marmol. That team under performed worse than the Padres.
The brass for the Marlins probably called Barry Jackson for some PR smoothing lol
The Marlins would probably be happy to hang this one squarely on Kim.
At the end of the day, it usually falls on the GM. If SD had offered Turner something crazy like $60M/3, then it is n one’s fault for not matching. On reasonably close contracts, and with Miami actually having an opening better suited for Turner, then attribute any reason you want, but Ng still did not get it done.
Sure. I’m just saying that the Marlins are probably more interested in trying to justify attempting to hire a POBO over Ng more so than they are interested in trying to put a positive spin on her worst decisions.
This reads as PR for Ng, not the Marlins. She wanted the better player but presumably wasn’t allowed to spend the extra money.
thornt25;
She had a payroll budget like very other FO head.
If she matched Boston’s offer, do you really think that going into 2023 Turner would have selected Miami over Boston? One park literally sells out the season with the cities sports fans enthusiastic; the other always finishes in the bottom 3 of attendance while the areas sports fans are going outdoors and talking some about the Dolphins prospects come August training camp. One park is a pitchers park, one park has a LF wall for hitters to aim at that as far away from home plate as many high school fields. Turner is a RH hitter. One cities team players get national pub, the other cities teams players are aren’t known by casual MLB fans.
This is a cherry-picked article that means nothing and is a cheap shot. It’s meant to point a finger at the Miami owner and make a martyr of Ms. Ng.
So what’s new?
Agreed with your conclusion that this is made to make her look good. Our reaction is supposed to be to give her credit for something she thought about doing but didn’t.
Signing Segura didn’t work out but wasn’t crazy. 1-2 WAR players get contracts that look like Segura’s all the time and sometimes they backfire. I’m just annoyed at how the PR machine is working overtime to somehow give her credit for thinking about singing Turner. I’ve never seen an article like this about a former GM.
Waaaah, a journalist who doesn’t think this whole situation was one-sided like most casuals think? The horror!
Marlins ball park is more of a pitchers park, it’s not where hitters are going to have great seasons. Justin Turner I’m sure scoffed at the idea of playing 81 games in Miami because of that reason.
Justin Turner I’m sure scoffed at the idea of playing 81 games in Miami because of that reason.
==========================
Except that Turner absolutely kills the ball at the Marlins park. JT has hit in 34 different parks, and Marlins Park has his highest OPS.
Joe, stop with the facts! His mind was already made up. Yeesh.
My mission in life is to get Americans to think better (or think at all). Baseball is merely my chosen platform.
@Joe Brady
LOL!! good luck with your stated mission.
I blame the school systems.
Some people just don’t believe silly things like facts if it doesn’t fit their agenda.
That’s fine. He’s 38. Maybe he didn’t feel like they were truly committed to building a winner.
Boy did he sure get fooled then! bloom was never committed to building a winner.
This just in: Jerry Dipoto wanted Gausman over Robby Ray. He also wanted to sign Tommy Pham instead of AJ Pollock. The Mariners are therefore a playoff team and are about to make their first trip to the World Series.
The White Sox wanted their players to be better.
although if she so strongly preferred Turner, it’s hard to imagine she couldn’t have beat Boston’s offer. Turner signed for two years and $21.7MM guaranteed, only $2.35MM more per year than Segura would command.
More to the point, while signing Turner might have gotten the Marlins more bang for their buck, Ng would eventually find a way to right her wrongs. She flipped Segura to the Guardians for Josh Bell,
==========================
One of the things that should be clarified. This could simply be the timing of the announcements, but Miami signed Segura on 1/4, while the RS signed Turner on 1/6. Either way, Ng still had two months to sign him. And he’d have been a perfect fit.
IRT to righting her wrongs, part of the solution involved giving up their #1 pick from 2021. That’s hardly an elegant solution. I’m not sure why MLBR chose to disclose this.
They do this for all free-agent front-office types…..oh wait, no they don’t. How curious.
I know the 2.35m doesn’t seem like much, but that may as well have been 23.5m with the Marlins budget. Purely speculating, of course, but she probably did everything she could there. They may have already been told they were out on 1/04, or had a strong hunch.
She made a poor pivot to Segura, though. Missing out on Turner is understandable, but you can’t panic and overvalue Segura
> I’m not sure why MLBR chose to
> disclose this.
Is it really news? Nah
Will people view it? You bet!
POST IT! $$$$
Could it be possible, even fathomable, that Justin Turner had no desire to play in Miami even for A-Rod money,???
That’s just one more thing that the writer skipped. Miami had an opening at 3B, which should’ve appealed to JT, but choosing Miami over the RS is a tough row to hoe.
Possible. Not likely. Money talks. I’m sure he would have preferred LA.
Marlins were dead last in runs scored in 2022, so had to try to make some upgrades, with a cheap-arse owner no doubt telling them to make offers that would have been laughed at in 2003
I am not trying to sound like a jerk or goof ball but I am a little tired of reading about a person that got mad because her company she work for wanted to hire a POBO and she got mad and ran away. It happens In the real world all the times. Please go home and cry or pull up your pants and find a new job. Like everyone else who has going through this.
No you don’t understand. She preferred a different player they didn’t sign, this PROVES she was a great GM.
I wish we heard more of this… I would love to be a fly on the wall and listen to FOs debate on moves while also knowing their restraints with payroll and how they present to ownership. The reality is we rarely get snippets like this.
Give me more… for all teams. That’s why I’m here!
Many male GMs quit when a POBO was going to be added above them. I believe it occurred in Boston when they brought in Dombrowski. Ben Charington resigned.
Yes and I remember baseball writers wringing their hands and crying over Ben Charington’s situation. Tons of sympathetic coverage.
I guess you don’t get the fact that a man HAD, in fact, been the GM of an MLB team before.
If Ng successfully pinned this on the Marlins owner, good for her
It is on my bucket list to quit a job on the spot. Almost did at Aramark, but my Dad was a manager at the time, and Aramark is a terrible enough company that they WOULD have screwed him in some way just because I walked out mid-shift (I did the whole 2-weeks notice thing)
Missing context. If I’m Turner with their recent history as opposed to the Marlins, I’m signing with Boston too.
A 2 yr 17 million bust is not the biggest disaster. Minasian and the Angels are still paying Tyler Anderson 3 yrs/39 million. Aaron Loup is also getting 2/17 mil w a -.6 WAR. He paid David Fletcher 6 million dollars to play for the Bees this year rather than play him. At least Ng was able to make a trade. the Angels would’ve stuck w him or release to waiver.
Think angels R still paying Josh hamilton
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Angels were still paying Chuck Finley lol
Aaron Loup was a good sign considering his past performance. The Angels strangely forced him to throw 4-seamers for strike pitch while he had used cutter/slider or sinker all his carrer.
I don’t know whether Perry really like the pitch or not but his pitchers drafted are mostly fastball/no controll types.
Segura was a good sign based on past performance.
At least Ng was able to make a trade.
===================
For which they gave up a recent #1,
For which she gave up a prospect that is now #16 in the Guardians system and grades out as a 45. A prospect that failed to hit at the A and A+ levels and is striking out more than 30% of the time.
… BREAKING NEWS … KIM NG PREFERRED ENRIQUE IGLESIAS … SETTLED FOR JOSE IGLESIAS INSTEAD … NEWS AT 11
Terrible!
Maybe turner preferred the red sox over Miami. It happens.
All I wanted last off-season was either JD Martinez or Justin Turner but somehow ended up with Trey Mancini… on a two year contract no less. For the life of me, I don’t know what the Cubs saw in Mancini.
I actually liked Segura a lot but not at third base. The Marlins signing him to do so was a head scratcher.
I liked him for the RS as well, but at 2B and for more like $8M. Pushing an aging player to switch to a position that he’s rarely played is a bit far afield.
Segura was interesting enough, had a really strong arm for a second baseman but I always worry about a guy suddenly changing positions as well. Obviously Cubs fan here but when Simmons, a world class shortstop, was asked to move to second, he was awful. His defensive skills didn’t diminish because he was still a stellar defensive shortstop but he couldn’t make the switch to second. Addison Russell was the same way, fantastic defender, better than Baez at short but couldn’t handle second base. Segura was used to going left, typically a second baseman needs to be strong going left vs right, third basemen have to be strong to their right, it’s different and when mentally you are not there, it travels down bat.
Segura had a passable 2022, so he wasn’t an insane signing. Moving him to 3B and moving Jazz Chisholm to CF was not great roster construction. It was an experiment and didn’t work out.
I’m very tired of reading that the Marlins had some magical season. The team was the worst playoff team in the history of baseball. 84 wins is a joke I’m sorry. This team will end up in last place next year or 4th if they get extremely lucky.
The current playoff format is a real problem when you get a team like this in the playoffs. Very simple you take the top 4 teams in each league and let them in the playoffs. Eliminate the divisions entirely. 6 playoff teams is too much.
So she preferred Turner to Segura bottom line is she didn’t get the job done so who cares. But please stop acting like this was turning water into wine here. The team had a -57 run differential. The Marlins have no fans anyway they are the team that should be moved. No one gives a rip about this team.
The fact the Marlins did as well as they did is more of a reflection on Skip Schumaker than anything else. Kim Ng’s signing of Segura for more than $5M shows me she’s not that bright. Getting Burger was a bit of luck too, Josh Bell for Segura was nothing more or less than a salary dump for the Guardians.
The team that should be moved is the other Florida team. the Jellyfish.
Yappi, the Padres made it in 2005 with 82 wins.
The comments on MLBTR the last few days regarding the Ng departure have been extremely pathetic. Many commenters seem to have deluded themselves into thinking people are defending her just because she is a woman.
People are defending her because she helped bring the Marlins to just their second playoff appearance since 2003. This particular article seems like a total nonstory, and I can understand if the Marlins front office was worried about their recent draft picks (in an earlier piece today)… but Jeter also basically left because ownership didn’t want to spend money. And now they want to put someone higher up the foodchain than her.
Ng should be getting an award for fleecing the White Sox out of Jake Burger alone. She’s going to be hired very quickly somewhere else, and the org that does will likely be better off than they were before.
Imagine if you were hired by a Board of Directors to be the CEO of a major company. That company went from mediocrity to being on a much better path during your two-year tenure. After finishing up on one of the company’s best years in the past two decades… the Board tells you they’re bringing in someone new for you to report to. Most sane people with a good track record behind them would say “seeya later” and go get a bigger contract elsewhere… and almost certainly one where you’ll have full control and a much bigger budget to work with. Why would someone turn down that opportunity after getting snubbed like that?
1. Why does every pro-Ng commenter ignore their historically poor run differential and unsustainable record in 1-run games? Making the playoffs with 84 wins in this context is not reason for optimism.
2. Yes, when you only look at the good moves she made, she’s a great GM. With the Angels, Billy Eppler got Dylan Bundy for nothing and was fired later that year. Her trade record is slightly positive, free agency is slightly negative.
3. The Marlins are not on a better path than 2020. If you look at run differential, they’ve mostly been treading water as a below average team for 4 years. In 2020, they at least had reason for optimism with a top tier farm. Their budget is ~50% higher now and their farm system is well below average.
Dylan Bundy for nothing???
Orioles thank the Angels for Kyle Bradish. Glad we got nothing!
Yeah that was dumb on my part, I was going off of memory. My bad. My overall point was that GMs make individual good trades and get fired but picked the worst possible example.
going from 69 wins to 84 with that payroll is reason for optimism, and the trade deadline deals should have been very inspiring. many playoff-searching teams sat on their hands or made minor moves
but hey, the Marlins owners know best. ran Jeter out of town cause he wanted to spend money. did the same with Ng for (supposedly) different reasons
I’m not saying Ng is some infallible genius. but I sure am interested to see what someone else is supposed to be doing better in her shoes. if they wanted better results on their draft picks, then bring in a new head of scouting maybe?
and most of my frustration comes from the MANY sexist comments littering MLBTR the last few days. I thought fans here were better, I guess I was wrong
It’s hard to evaluate what an alternate world GM would have done with the Marlins, but she didn’t inherit a basket case franchise. She inherited a low spending team with a well regarded farm system and a lot of solid young pitchers. By run differential, the Marlins have been treading water as a below average team for a few years now. This is not all on her, but that’s where the team stands.
I’m sure you’ve seen sexist comments about her, but that’s far outweighed by the media gushing over her record and how they “made the playoffs”. I think a lot of people are responding to that with the observation that if she wasn’t considered a trailblazer, nobody would care about the team moving on.
mostlytoasty34 mins ago
going from 69 wins to 84 with that payroll is reason for optimism,
=========================
I am an agnostic on Ng, but I would make a modest wager that the Marlins won’t be .500 next year. Assuming they don’t pick up Cueto and Barnes’ option, but do keep Berti, they will be at ~ $133M. I doubt they are gong much higher than that.
The Giants went 77-85 in 2019. Then 29-31 in 2020. Then 107-55 in 2021. Did that break out season prove the organization was “on the right path”? No. Not yet at least. The 84 win Marlins have several cons heading into 2024:
-Sandy Alcantara is out for the year. – No fault of the GM, but a major obstacle.
Jorge Solar is opting out: He’s going to price himself out of Miami.
They need a SS, CF, Catcher, and probably another SP: Where do they come from? These are premium positions with no obvious candidates on the roster. I’m sure Jazz would go back to CF. Does that solve the problem?
Look, I am rooting for Skip Schumacher and his former-Cardinals coaching staff. But this team is more likely to regress than take a step forward.
Kim Ng was purely “ok” as a GM. There may be mitigating factors. Ownership may have been heavy handed and restrictive. But she still made mistakes and that’s ok. She had some wins too. That is the exact resume of many former GM’s. She held her own and that should be enough. She didn’t revolutionize the sport. She didn’t cause 15 other teams to run out and hire female GM’s, but that’s ok. She showed she could do the job. That’s enough. We shouldn’t go back and make excuses for her mistakes. We should treat her exactly the same as we treat other outed exec’s. There were wins and losses. Better luck next time. You proved you belonged. That should be enough.
That payroll total seems high, Joe. What is the projected arb class number? Must be a very big one.
Standings are based on Wins, not run differential. Wild Card teams make the playoffs based on record, not division. You don’t build a winning culture without winning. Next year is next year. New players will arrive. Sustainability of this years trends won’t even apply.
So the run differential is the GM’s fault and not the on-field manager’s? I stopped reading after that because you proved you know nothing about baseball.
lol
Yawn…
But they’re still mediocre and not necessarily on a better path. That’s the issue.
Apparently going from 69 wins to 84 and a playoff birth with the 24th overall payroll is not the right direction. That’s news to me!
And unlike the penny-pinching Yankees, they went out and tried to improve themselves at the deadline, something many other on-the-edge teams refused to do (also those deals were good for them).
This was also her first time running a team on her own. Her past roles were in support of other execs. But if we’re assuming an assistant GM had final say on draft picks, then I guess her sole chance at a top 15 pick, which was in the form of Clayton Kershaw, certainly wasn’t a bad one.
Who are you her Mom?
Best decision she made was hiring Skip Schumaker.
If I’m Justin Turner I’m signing with Boston over the Marlins unless the Marlins are giving JT $25M
At least she got to fleece Cleveland out of Josh Bell and stuck them with the bill sor Sgura for this year and the next 2!
And she dumped problem child Khalil Watson on them so people will forget about that failed 1st round pick! Genius!
What problems does Watson have?
He was suspended for using his bat to make a “shooting” gesture at an umpire. Rumors of maturity issues the past couple of years.
Wait… what was wrong with the umpire thing??? Umpires are just… well… umpires
1-He’s small, listing as 5’10” and 178.
2-He’s a strikeout machine with a 232/83 minor league K/W in only 659 ABs.
3-He’s not really a SS.
4-He’s had behavioral issues, including miming shooting the ump with his bat.
But he is supposedly a great athlete with a quick swing. Bell had very little value and was never going to take 1B from Naylor. My guess is that CL was glad to dump him, save $6M, and get a pretty decent lottery pick in return.
They accepted their failure and took on a great athlete with some raw tools.
Miami hasn’t been able to develop position players very well recently. Cleveland isn’t the gold standard on that front either but a new org may do him some good.
Saying she flipped segura is a bit of a reach. She dumped Segura’s salary and had to include their 2021 1st rd pick to get Bell.
Why is no one talking about Atkins NOT being fired.
Not the topic.
Complete BS, she didn’t want him in LA back in the day either
Funny how the superb self appointed experts always but always, take personal non-baseball shots at people who don’t agree with them.
Personal insults rule. Lol.
Personally, I don’t think they know diddly.
I don’t think people should insult other people’s families or assume a living situation.
Bo knows……
There’s no guarantee that Plan A 3B Justin Turner wanted to play on the Mariners over the BoSox. Still, the Plan B IF Jean Segura signing was a dud nontheless.
I’m sure every GM doesn’t always get their Pan A target every season.
Should’ve traded Jazz Chisholm while his stock is high.
Oh, what a shocker! Kim Ng made a questionable decision last offseason. I mean, who could have seen that coming? Signing Jean Segura instead of Justin Turner, what a travesty. Clearly, she should have foreseen that Turner would have such a stellar season with the Red Sox. And let’s not forget how Ng could have easily outbid Boston for Turner; it’s not like the Red Sox have a history of overspending. But fear not, for Ng was just playing the long game, turning Segura into Josh Bell, and landing Jake Burger. I guess we should applaud her for her ability to clean up her own mess. After all, it’s not like mistakes happen in baseball front offices all the time.
Leo, the Marlins did offer more than the Red Sox. That was reported last year as well. Turner even confirmed he didn’t want to sign with Miami even though they had offered more money.
If Ng wanted Turner, than she should’ve stopped doing so many interviews and other self-promo gigs between her winter hibernation, and should have stayed on Turner, Bellinger and Bell. Same thing with Brandon Drury, who she also hibernated on.
Seems to me, when you wait until weeks before pitchers and catchers report to actually focus on your job, you’re not going to get the pieces you want because players need to know where they’ll play next season…and their significant others want to know by the holidays if they can spend a bunch of money of gifts. No surprise she missed out on the pieces that were preferred and had to settle on the pieces that were still unemployed coming toward Spring Training.